We treat pursuits and ambitions as goals that define who we are. You can walk up to almost anyone on the street and immediately learn what single desire is driving that person's life.
I want to be an engineer. I want to be a journalist. I want to be rich.
Now consider some of these desires for a moment. Are they natural? Are these pursuits a necessary prerequisite of happiness? Do they enhance life?
It is assumed that every pursuit revolves around a desire for greater happiness, but at the same time it would seem these pursuits cannot possibly be a prerequisite of happiness.
Consider the example of Matthieu Ricard, the man pictured below.
Ricard is a Buddhist monk, and he spends much of his day doing what most of us would consider 'nothing.' He meditates for long periods of time and pursues none of the typical Western forms of happiness, like fame and fortune.
Ricard's philosophy on the good life is quite simple.
Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.
Sophisticated MRI scans by cognitive scientists at the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience in Wisconsin seem to suggest Ricard is one of the happiest people alive. This seems to point to an incredible conclusion, one that many of us know but rarely remind ourselves of:
Happiness is independent of your specific pursuits, and forms of happiness reliant on external desires are short-lived.
This is further confirmed by research done in the field of synthetic happiness, the kind of happiness we make even when we don't get what we want.
We encounter synthetic happiness all the time. When people say getting fired from their job was the best thing that could have happened to them, you are witnessing first hand the synthesis of happiness. But are they really happy? The answer seems to be yes, synthetic happiness is just as real as 'true' happiness. More on this later.
The point is, it actually doesn't matter all that much what happens to you in life. What matters is how you perceive and react to those happenings. We know that circumstances only account for about 7-12% of overall happiness once basic human needs are met.
Make it your goal to be happy regardless of what life throws at you, and you will never be unhappy.
You don't need to give up what you are pursuing to be happy, but you also don't need to be unhappy until you have reached your goal. It is possible to both strive and be happy while doing it, and dare I say this combination breeds the best results.
This is an incredibly powerful mindset, and I think you'll find it actually becomes much easier to accomplish spectacular things when you are already happy to begin with.
Great success should be the result of happiness, not a requirement for it. Don't look to purpose to bring happiness, look to happiness to bring purpose.
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To learn more about synthetic happiness, watch The Surprising Science of Happiness with Dan Gilbert, and check out his book, Stumbling on Happiness.
To learn more about Matthieu Ricard, the 'happiest man in the world,' watch his talk called The Habits of Happiness, or visit his website.